Of what use is a “binding” order with no mechanism for enforcement?

Not much. Such an order isn’t of much use. The beleaguered inhabits of Rafah can attest to that.

Over the weekend, the Israeli military moved ahead with offensive operations in the city, where scores of civilians are trapped in a war zone with no good options. In theory, they can flee. And hundreds of thousands have. But only to the other side of town. Or to other besieged cities and settlements in the tiny enclave.

Gaza’s unique among war zones in being sealed off not just in a de facto sense but quite literally. Even if they have the wherewithal, people can’t leave. They’re fish in a barrel. In many cases, the same civilians have moved multiple times during the conflict, shuttling from one hot spot to another in an effort to at least avoid the worst of the fighting. Many die anyway.

On Friday, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel not to proceed with a highly controversial offensive in Rafah or “any other action… which may inflict on the Palestinian group in Gaza conditions of life that could bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”

Plainly, the order was meant as a cease and desist. But Israel cynically claimed that targeted operations in Rafah don’t count. “What they are asking us is to not commit genocide in Rafah,” National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi said, during an interview with local television. “We did not commit genocide and we will not commit genocide.”

That’s an especially (and tragically) absurd example of question-begging. Israel is saying this to the court: As part of a larger effort to prevent a genocide, you’re telling us not to invade Rafah because that’s likely to result to civilian casualties on a scale that resembles genocide, but we never committed genocide in the first place and would never do such a thing, so this order doesn’t apply, is nonsensical or both.

Just before the order was issued, Yoav Gallant said the IDF was doubling down on its operations in Rafah, and that the operation would “grow, with more forces on the ground and more forces from the air.” Last week, International Criminal Court prosecutor Karim Khan sought an arrest warrant for Gallant.

“The airstrikes are continuous and intense, and the smell of smoke doesn’t leave the air,” one local, who lives in a tent in Western Rafah, told The New York Times. “They shoot and bomb us constantly, but what scares us the most are the drones.”

Israel continues to insist that whatever form it takes, the Rafah operation remains a strategic necessity in order to seal the border with Egypt and destroy the last four organized Hamas fighting units. On Sunday, air raid sirens were heard in Tel Aviv, where Israelis hurried into bomb shelters. The IDF said Hamas managed to fire eight missiles from Rafah. All were intercepted, but the military cited the barrage, which Hamas claimed, as proof that the group’s smuggling networks remain active.

US efforts to pressure the IDF into taking more deliberate measures to protect civilians are having some impact on the ground, where Israeli soldiers are reportedly engaging in more urban warfare with Hamas in areas that might’ve simply been bombed earlier in the conflict. Still, the situation’s a waking nightmare.

As many as a million locals have moved to areas the military claims are safe, but provisions — food, water and the like — are woefully inadequate. Gaza, all of it, is an apocalyptic moonscape defined by squalor, suffering and every antonym of the word “hope.”

Predictably, the White House is already backing away from Joe Biden’s “red lines.” In a public break with Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this month, Biden told Americans (and the world) he wouldn’t support the offensive in Rafah, calling the operation “just wrong.” But Jake Sullivan, back from a trip to Israel, equivocated. “What we have seen so far… has been more targeted and limited,” he said, of the Rafah fighting. The IDF, he went on, hasn’t engaged in “major military operations in the heart of dense urban areas.”

Israel says the web of underground smuggling routes beneath Rafah is vast. The IDF has pictures, apparently, and could destroy much of the network, but Israel’s keen to avoid embarrassing the Egyptian government. Cairo indicated a willingness to join South Africa’s genocide case at the ICJ after Israel took control of the Rafah crossing. Long story short, Egypt isn’t especially effective at preventing smuggling into Gaza, everyone knows it and the IDF has taken matters into its own hands. That’s choking off humanitarian aid, humiliating Egypt and just generally increasing the overall level of tension.

The problem’s always the same: Absent a credible plan (any plan, really) for the so-called “day after,” Israel will almost invariably find itself occupying Gaza in perpetuity, an outcome nobody wants but which Netanyahu has made all but inevitable by refusing to engage in earnest efforts to craft some workable post-war arrangement for security and the provision of basic services.

Benny Gantz, who threatened to quit the war cabinet unless Netanyahu met a series of demands by June 8, cited the rocket attack on Tel Aviv as evidence the job isn’t done. “Wherever Hamas is, the Israeli military must act,” he said. And yet, Hamas is now resurfacing in the north. And in Khan Younis. In short, Hamas is everywhere in Gaza. Still.

The grim reality is that Gaza’s an open-ended conflict. This isn’t a war Israel can win. The geography (i.e., the fact that Gaza’s so small), the existence of the Palestinian Authority and the very real prospect of forging a regional coalition to help rebuild and govern the strip means there are options. But Netanyahu doesn’t seem interested in pursuing any of them. For all his high-minded rhetoric, Gantz doesn’t either on some days.

In all likelihood, Gaza’s condemned to be a failed statelet where Hamas wages a forever insurgency against partial Israeli military rule. The economic plight of the populace will remain generally desperate and just as before the war, two million people will be trapped in an open-air prison under blockade, deprived even of the right to hope for something better.